MOTORISTS who park in illegally or without consideration for other drivers will soon find their cars branded with large yellow signs.

Parking warning stickers are now being used in Weston and the rest of North Somerset to ‘educate’ motorists who have parked on double yellow lines or in disabled parking spaces without a valid badge.

Large yellow stickers with the North Somerset Council logo will be put on the offending cars as part of a new scheme which kicked off this week.

The stickers say: “Parking warning. Next time this could be a £50 fine.”

Although the stickers carry no legal weight, it is hoped they will help educate motorists who may not have been aware they are parking incorrectly.

A North Somerset Council spokesman said: “When our community response officers are out and about all over the district if they see a vehicle which is illegally parked they will put one of these notices on it and they act as a bit of an education tool.

“The vehicle’s owner might not have realised it is illegal or inconvenient to other road users.”

As well as issuing these warnings, the community response team will also make a note of persistent offenders and pass details to police officers – who can then hand out penalty fines.

The council hopes the community response team will soon have the same powers to issue fines as the police do.

At present, North Somerset does not employ traffic wardens, but instead police officers take on responsibility for preventing people from parking on double yellows or in disabled bays without a valid badge.

However, authority leaders say they are looking to bring in civil parking enforcement, meaning its community response team would have a stronger role on policing illegal parking in future.

Feedback from the community response team on how the new scheme is going will be given at the next Partners and Communities Together meeting at the Town Hall in Walliscote Grove Road on August 11.